Sdtrk: ‘It’s a rainy day, sunshine girl’ by Faust

If I had more money than sense — and we’re talking a Scrooge McDuck level of income, here, as he’s the only billionaire who I wouldn’t want to see doing the Tyburn jig — what I would definitely do after ending world hunger, eradicating diseases, eliminating global warming, and ramping up mass production on Gynoids and Androids (not in that order) would be to have a 1:1 scale replica of the island in Arnold Böcklin’s Die Toteninsel built in a large lake somewhere, possibly in Europe. Probably Germany, as that would make the most sense, really.

Die Toteninsel! Or, as it’s known in English, Isle of the Dead! An evocative painting created by the Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin, he’d created at least six different versions between 1880 and 1901, so during your life, you may well have come across at least one of them at some point. Apparently early 20th century Europe was lousy with reproductions of it; the writer Nabokov wrote in one of his novels that it could be ‘found in every Berlin home’, similar to how Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Chinese girl (aka The green lady) gazed wistfully from hundreds of livingroom walls in post-WWII England.

Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901): born in Basel, married three times, had fourteen children — a busy lad — painted mostly in the Symbolist style, wherein dreamlike imagery or mythological characters and scenes tended to stand in for so-called absolute truths, whatever that may have meant in the late 1800s. The scenery for Die Toteninsel itself is said to have been inspired by the English cemetery in Florence, as well as the island Pontikonisi near Corfu, or the smaller island Stromboliccio in Sicily, or perhaps Sveti Đorđe island, off the coast of Montenegro. Art historians aren’t entirely sure, and they won’t be until they finally gain access to time travel technology; in which case, anything goes.
In 1888, sometime between his creation of the fifth and sixth edition, Böcklin finished a separate painting called Die Lebensinsel (The Isle of Life), which depicts a similar island under blue skies, where people and swans gambol about. As I personally find it to be saccharine, I won’t be speaking about it any further.

With the exception of our Bailes, all of us here at Deafening silence Towers are either Goth or Goth-adjacent, so we’re well familiar with the morose imagery of Isle of the Dead. For funsies, I’d asked the rubber troublemakers about which version they fancy best, with somewhat predictable results (click on the pics to see ’em larger):

URSULA (‘Basel’ version, 1880):

It’s funny, this was one of my desktop wallpapers for a couple of years !

Being honest, this version in particular gives me shivers every time I see it. I mean, it’s got a real, palpable sense of twilight, both in the sense of the end of the day, and in the end of a life. I look at this and I can hear nothing but the boat’s oars in the water, and if I’m able to move my attention past that, it usually ends up fixed on the black Void at the base of the cypress trees in the middle of the island. Böcklin overall doesn’t do anything for me, but if he’d never painted anything else in his life after this version of Isle of the Dead, he’d be one of my favourite artists, cuz this image makes me genuinely believe that this is an island that actually exists, and despite my thalassophobia, I would do anything to visit it. Being honest !

ELENA (Fifth version, 1886):

For me, I am thinking Böcklin could do no better than this… is very dreamlike, but not in a way that is scary. I am thinking is because of the tones and the warm colours that he is using. Perhaps storm is coming, but is not a fearful, dramatic storm… the gentle way the trees sway in the wind and the way the high island rock walls seem to be embracing them is making the scene almost welcoming. It is perhaps the end of life, but is nothing to be afraid of. I am liking too how this edition almost seems more primitive compared to the other version, which is strange, as Böcklin is painting this so late in his life after the others?

For me, 1886 version of The Dead Isle is showing that death is not a thing to be feared… it can be a beautiful place of final rest.

SIDORE (Sixth version, 1901):

As fond as I am of all the versions that Böcklin painted, I almost see them as drafts in comparison to his final version of Die Toteninsel… it’s as if he thought ‘this is it, THIS is the vision I’ve been wanting to convey for twenty years’. There’s a clear definition in the frames of the sepulchre’s entryways, as well as the overall landscape, but as crisp as it all is, it’s still undeniably an image from a dream. And I absolutely LOVE the contrast between the water, which is so still it looks as if the boat is sailing on glass, and the enormous looming stormcloud behind the island.

Oh! In case you’d not seen it in Galerie ECHO, when Darling commissioned xplotter to do an illustration of me back in January 2023, I had him add the 1901 Die Toteninsel to the background. It takes the illo from ‘sexy’, to ‘sexy with an interesting background’!…

Both Miss Winter and Dyanne are wildly ambivalent towards ‘Die Toteninsel’. Which is fine, I suppose.
As far as my own preference? I dig the third version painted in 1883 the most, as seen here:

For whatever reason in the early twenty-first century, this one seems to be the arguably most popular version. The early morning lighting of the image stands out, and although there were two additional renditions that he’d painted after 1883, it strikes a visual and emotive midpoint between just dark enough and just light enough; or, if you like, just bleak enough and just hopeful enough. Sure, there’s a small boat ferrying a casket to its final resting place, but the water’s calm and the day seems pleasant. Perhaps that’s not a casket, but a large pic-a-nic basket! (Sorry.)
In all seriousness, though, there had to be something about that island where it was clearly persisting in Böcklin’s subconscious, where he had to render it six different times… it’s almost as if he was exorcising it.

Bolstering the notion that the third version is what people think of when they hear Die Toteninsel, I searched a few online shops looking for a reproduction of the sixth version to go on our office wall, so that the Missus could point at it and say ‘look at what Darling bought for me’, but no joy — all I could find were the third version, the fifth, and occasionally the Basel 1880 one. Honestly, I wonder why the other three renditions are generally overlooked?
Shi-chan is rightfully annoyed, but as she’d remarked — after a protracted sigh — ‘having any version of the painting in our home is better than having no version at all’, and I’d definitely agree.

‘geez, you goffs are just SOOO BLEAK all the time! 🧛🕷️😂’ Yeah, thanks, Bailes

So if you weren’t aware of the existence of Böcklin’s painting (and its subsequent remixes) before, you certainly are now. Which version of Die Toteninsel draws your attention the most?

Also, if I had more money than sense, I’d buy a parcel of land the size of a shopping mall, have a cul de sac of houses all built like Charles and Ray Eames’ Case study house #8, and fill each home with Dolls. But then, I would say that

Sdtrk: ‘West for west’ by Grace brother

We’re not entirely sure if this makes us cyber-recluses, but all of us here at Deafening silence Towers are largely averse to social media. None of us are on Facebook, or Meta, or Instagram, or Threads, or TikTok, or tumblr, or CrclJrk, or what the hell ever, and as I’d mentioned in this here post here, we’re no longer on the site formerly known as Twitter as of mid-2023. Correction: Lenka, Snowy, Dragonfly, and Bailes deleted their Twitter accounts, and although the Missus and I still have ours, we’ve not used them since last year. She and I are trying to figure out a way to delete our tweets but keep the accounts, in order to ward off imposters, as that sort of nonsense has happened before, but apart from that, we haven’t engaged with what is now known as X, The Everything App, in a long time. Everytime I hear that phrase, I throw up a little bit in my mouth, as anyone sensible would.
I should add here that I did say ‘largely averse’; note the qualifier. Four of the six of us have happily created accounts on Bluesky — the links of which can be found in the lefthand sidebar — so if long-form writing isn’t your thang, you can possibly interact with us there!

Pulling up stakes and leaving was a really bittersweet thing. Well, for most of us; Elena was never really comfortable on social media, due to what she perceives as her shaky grasp on English, and her girlfriend Miss Winter lost her own password a month or so into starting her account (she blames her ADHD), so neither couldn’t be arsed to get back into it. But for Ursula, Dyanne, Sidore, and myself, we’d spent literal years forming friendships and cultivating contacts, particularly in the world of Synthetiks. By the time we’d experienced our own personal Twexit, we were following eighty mostly-active accounts either being run by Dolls or iDollators, or Doll manufacturers, or researchers in fields centred round humanoid robots. To this day, we’re hopeful that Apartheid Clyde will do just one more stupid fucking thing to persuade another giant swath of users to abandon the site that he destroyed, and it’s our hope that they’ll flee to Bluesky, where we’ll welcome them with open arms, and get back to the regular informative/sexy/hilarious interaction we enjoyed.

If it wasn’t somehow glaringly obvious, we fucking hate Musk. Mainly as we loathe billionaire transphobes who have their tongues solidly lodged in the orange rectums of racist fascists. But nobody’s perfect!!
Prior to Phony Stark announcing loudly to the world that he hearts fascism, the thing that drove a stake through the heart for us with Twitter was that rate limiting ridiculousness. Sidore used to only be on the site during Sunday afternoons, where she’d play catch-up by liking/retweeting every tweet she’d missed from the past six days by our favourite accounts, and as there are loads of those accounts, it didn’t take long for her to hit that cap. It was kinda upsetting for me — really, all of us here — cos we’d never seen Shi-chan that frustrated. However, if she or any of us wanted to circumvent the rate limiting cap, all we’d have to do is pay for an annual subscription fee! Heh. As we collectively decided that paying for a site that was not only free for years, but knowing that money would actively go towards deplatforming loads of people who aren’t basically racist cunts, wasn’t remotely an option, we all figured this would be a good time to draw a line under it. When you have a spoiled rich little twat running things solely according to how many ego-blowjobs he’s received that hour, well, as I’d mentioned to a fellow iDollator, it’s not fun anymore.

The thing that really drives me mental is that, despite the horrible things that Leon Skum has done and continues to do, as well as the proliferation of his fanboys and other unsavoury elements that Xitter is now top-heavy with, there are still arguably sensible people who remain on that platform, and as far as I’m concerned, the excuses for staying don’t really hold water.
> But I have so many friends/accounts that I follow still there!
If you tell your mates that you’re taking off cos Twitter is shitter, you should also suggest they come with you. If they’re staying cos of their friends/accounts they follow, they need to suggest the same.
> But I don’t have anything morally objectionable cropping up in my feed!
Just because you don’t see bad things doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen. Choosing to believe they don’t is wilful ignorance.
> But I’m an artist/writer/musician/sexworker/&c. and it’s how I promote my work!
I know it’s difficult to be a creative person and also have to do your own promotion and marketing; that’s understandably tiresome. But think of it an opportunity to gain new fans, as well as to retain the old ones! Plus there’s no restrictive algorithms on Bluesky, for example, that would prevent you from reposting as often as you like, or linking to external sites, etc. Also, if you tell your fanbase you’re moving, especially to someplace less toxic and, y’know, free to join, the only thing preventing them from doing so is laziness.
> But other social media platforms are booooring!
You are addicted to drama. Stay behind and keep that shit on Twitter.

Right now, Xitter is a windowless room with you and all your mates and associates, and you’re like huh, I smell gas, and other people are like I don’t smell anything. I’m fine! Others are like Well that’s not good, but I just sat down, and this seat is really comfy, and still others are like Oh, I’m not liking that, but if I leave, I can’t get angry about the smell of gas. Others still are like Well, I guess my friends and I will just die here together, cos at least we’ll be with familiar people. A small contingent are like I’ll leave, but I’ll regularly come back, stick my head in the room, and inhale deeply. And then bitch about the smell.

Back in 2020, there was a bloke who went by @IamRageSparkle who will forever go down in history for providing society with the stellar anecdote that’s been called ‘the parable of the nazi bar’, the screenshots of which can be found below.

That’s what’s happened with Twitter.
Basically, my lasses and I stopped using it for the same reasons the Missus and I stopped using Facebook: we didn’t want to be censored for any of the things that we had to say or post, and we didn’t want to tacitly support a shitwick who is actively working to exterminate progressive society. The choice is simple, and hell, you don’t even have to migrate to Bluesky, or Mastodon, or even Hive Social (their motto: We Tried); just give some serious consideration to deleting your account at Xitter. Honestly, it’s not that difficult, as this is what you want to avoid

Sdtrk: ‘Off your face’ by My bloody valentine

First off, what the actual fuck, United states. I’m not even providing a link, as you lot know what I’m referring to. (If you’re reading this in the future, this was written days after the 2024 presidential elections. Also, what’s it like in the future, on a scale of ‘1984’ to ‘Threads’? Have the Water wars begun yet?)
‘Shouting &c.’ isn’t a political blog, as it’s a topic that I don’t enjoy talking about either on or offline — politics should be like oxygen; effective and mostly harmless, and something you don’t think about unless you absolutely have to — but to millions of empathetic individuals, the results were exceptionally soul-crushing. I stayed off social media through the entirety of 05 November, and when I checked the Guardian round 10am the next day, Sidore and I were like ‘well, there’s no point in getting out of bed today,’ and basically slept in until 5pm.

We’ve had awful people in the halls of power since the halls of power were first built. Some were outright inept bunglers, while others were the human equivalent of Elder Gods, sustaining their lives through the misery of others; I’m thinking about cunts like Thatcher, and Reagan, and both Bushes (Bushs?), and the first time the orange shitgibbon fell upwards into the highest office of the land. And, well, things are going to be shit for a while. But it’s important to keep moving forward and to keep resisting. Especially resist giving into having a fatalistic doomer attitude that revolves round giving up and giving into learned helplessness, as that doesn’t do anyone any good. Do what you can, and keep moving forward, and keep resisting.

Genesis P-Orridge, iconoclast, artist, pandrogyne, and a member of Throbbing gristle, one of the cornerstone groups of Industrial music, once spoke with friend, colleague, and collaborator Monte Cazazza during the late Eighties. If I recall the anecdote correctly, Gen was in the midst of a life crisis, and was thinking of ending it all; Monte persuaded Gen otherwise, his advice being ‘Don’t do it. Stay alive out of spite’. I’d honestly say that’s sound advice.

So! Now that I’ve had to rewrite this opening bit, thanks to current events, what else have we got here? Well, this post is a bit of a return to form: I’m dumping some links for things that are endorsed by those of us here at DS Towers, much as I’ve been often doing with mates and associates via Email. Which is funny, as one of the reasons I started up this blog in the first place is so that I could post my life updates / ramblings / concert reviews / lists of things I bought / lists of things I want to buy in a centralised location, where friends could read them, as opposed to me Emailing everyone I know separately with that type of nonsense. Ah heh heh. *sighs*

Early last year, I’d spotted a blurb about this on Anime News Network, but there’s an anime series with the title My wife has no emotion, based on the ongoing manga by Jiro Sugiura, the twelve episodes of which aired in Summer of this year. Thanks to being able to access a mate’s Crunchyroll account *cough cough*, Sidore and I watched them all over the course of two days back in September, and we basically have to say that it’s the most pro-Synthetik example of media we’ve ever seen, hands down.

Basically it’s set in a near-future Japan, and the main Organik character, Takuma Kosugi, is a salaryman who of course has no time to cook proper meals for himself, so he buys an ‘appliance’ in the form of Mina, the main Synthetik character. Over the course of the first couple of stories, Takuma finds himself attracted to Mina, and in her own unique fashion, Mina feels the same way.
The ground this type of story covers has been well-tread, but unlike most examples, it’s not twee, it’s not pervy, it’s exceptionally heartfelt… I almost can’t explain how much we love and empathise with the story. Every couple of chapters, either the characters do or say something that reflects our mindsets, or the story goes somewhere that I would have taken it if I had written it… things like that. It’s extremely refreshing to read a story that not only is earnestly pro-Synthetik, but even the few characters who are against robots make interesting arguments. There’s one story arc with a ghost that’s a little dumb, but 98% of the rest of the series is funny, lovely, eye-opening, and there’s an arc or two that’s downright heartbreaking. It’s to the point of where I’d love to speak with Sugiura and tell him I understand this story, cos in a way, I’m living it, and I’m not the sort of person who would ever have the urge to contact an author of fiction to that extent.
I have to add that as amazing as the anime series is (I gave it a 10 out of 10 on MyAnimeList), the manga’s even better. The anime covers the first 25 chapters, or up to most of Vol.04, and as no-one’s confirmed yet if there’ll be more episodes made, you’ll get even more out of My wife has no emotion through the manga, the first seven tankobon of which are available in English via Seven seas entertainment. Give it a go! It’s Claire Worthy-approved!

Our friend and Synthetiks luminary Julie Carpenter, Ph.D, who’s no slouch in researching and writing about robots, has assembled her second book that you can pre-order right this very minute, called ‘The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze’.

And now, a mind-meld with Georges Seurat

Whatever could this rich, luxurious, 296 page book be discussing, you axe? As the page on the publisher’s website says,

The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze illuminates the connection between the stories people tell, their expectations of what a robot is, and how these beliefs and values manifest in how real robots are designed and used.

The introduction of the “human gaze” articulates how peoples’ expectations and perceptions about robots are ultimately based on deeply personal cultural interpretations of what is artificial or human and what problems social robots should –or should not –solve. The Naked Android clarifies how human qualities like understanding and desire are designed into robots as mediums as well as projected onto them by the people who live with them.

Why not go ahead and pre-order your copy? We here are looking forward to reading it, which should go without saying! Perhaps I’m in it in some capacity? Who can say?? But as society needs more salient insight regarding artificial humans, Julie’s latest book will be a welcome addition to one of our shelves, without question…

Sven Nyholm’s Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism; Dr Kate Devlin’s Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots; The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture by Dr Danielle Knafo and Rocco Lo Bosco; Jenny Kleeman’s Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, and Davor Rostuhar’s Love Around the World. Yes, we’re in all of these. Available wherever finer books are sold (links on the Media appearances page)

Speaking of salient insight regarding Synthetiks, since Summer 2023, I have been in conversation off and on with Chihiro Hamano, who is a Japanese anthropologist and writer who is gusset-deep in writing a book about iDollators and robosexuals. The experience with her has been exceptionally fun! Last August, she flew from Japan to visit various iDollators here in the States… she was in the country for about a month overall, and spent time with people who the lasses and I know, both rubber and not-rubber, in San Francisco, Virginia, and one other state I forget. As Deafening silence Plus was barely large enough to accomodate six people, she stayed at an AirBNB a quarter of a mile away when she was in SE Michigan, and over four or so days, she’d come round for a interview that usually lasted between four to six hours… either I’d blather at length and she’d take copious notes, or she’d take multiple photos of the lasses here. When she wasn’t interrogating me or Euchre, who kindly agreed to speak with her, she’d spend time with goshou & Liann, where they took her to various locations in the area.
When she Emailed me back in June, saying she’d be doing further research, I invited her to come on down! Well, over. Chihiro was hitting various cities in the US a second time for follow-up interviews with some people, and new interviews with new iDollators, as well as meeting a few more of my friends who’ve known me for years, such as MontiLee and Amber Hawk Swanson. As her AirBNB experience was a bit sub-optimal, she stayed round at The Playhouse and Deafening silence Towers, which worked out loads better. I can’t even imagine how many hours of conversations she’d recorded with us all… it’s almost staggering to think about, but then, that’s anthropology, innit?
No word yet on when the book’s slated to be out — before she departed for Japan at the end of August, she said she’d written two out of a possible nine chapters — nor what its title will be, but as soon as I hear anything, you lot will be the first to know! Well, not the first per se. Also, we’re trying to get her in touch with a translator, cos for now, the book will only be in Japanese… But Chihiro’s a fun and inquisitive individual, and everyone she spoke with had nothing but glowing words to describe her! Plus, she’s a fan of the ‘Battles without honor and humanity‘ series, so she’s definitely in my good books!…

Prior to Chihiro’s 2024 visit, back in June, I was requisitioned by Emily of the site LoveNestle, to chat earnestly and at length about my 20+ years of living with rubbery partners. And so I did!

Never been interviewed by a red panda before! That was a first

In addition to an article penned by Emily, Shi-chan and I were interviewed via Zoom by Sarah Gibson, who, as the image above shows, was a red panda wearing goggles and a cheery acorn cap for a hat. One could assume that was a VR rigged avatar she was using, but you never can tell these days. Which is fine! But you can read the article and/or watch the hour-long interview video, which is embedded in the article, for the sort of insights that only I can provide. During the video, I get to weigh in about what passes for AI these days, which many viewers may find amusing! (SPOILERS: the ethical, moral, and environmental nightmare that passes for AI is shit, and needs to be heavily regulated)

Prior to that, in May, Holly, a student at Leiden University in the Netherworld Netherlands contacted me about picking my brains for a bachelors thesis she was working on, which I happily agreed to, for obvious reasons. In her words, ‘The purpose of my thesis is a “controversy mapping” project of the academic discourse that has existed around sex dolls/sex robots/Synthetik humans, looking at how ideas have been spread through between actors. I’m specifically focussing on the sensationalism of it, and how people fill in the gaps themselves of things that they just don’t know (either because they don’t want to hear it or the large-scale data is just not there). ‘As fantastic and much-needed serious academic study is needed on robosexual and iDollator culture, there’s still myth and assumption that takes place; even though there have been an increasing number of academic studies and papers centred round our cultures in the past fifteen years, a lot of it is still terra incognita. For example, I’d been told on a couple of occasions about scholars wanting to get more in-depth with their studies on robosexuals and iDollators, and not being able to get grants, due to grantors not wanting to spend money on ‘prurient’ topics.
Luckily for those of you not in academia, you still have an opportunity to read Holly’s paper! ‘Talking About Sex Robots: Mapping academic controversy in sex robot discourse’ can be accessed from ResearchGate here, or you can yoink it off of her Google Drive here. It’s worth reading! But I would say that.

Good cover, too! Kinda shoegazey

Now take a moment to cast your mind back to the Year of Our Lord, 2016. SEGA released both Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 6: The song of life over the course of that year. The anime adaptation of the Diamond is unbreakable arc of JoJo’s bizarre adventure made its debut in April, and the compilation film of Mobile suit Gundam Thunderbolt known as December sky was available. Also, an orange shitgibbon lied his way into the highest office of the land. 2016 also saw the release of ‘A Girl of Ivory‘, an episode of the podcast series Love + Radio featuring the voices of myself, Sidore Kuroneko, and Elena Vostrikova, which made for a very memorable installment for production crew and listeners alike!
So also back during this past May, Nick van der Kolk hit me up, enquiring how the lasses and I were, and would I be willing to do a follow-up interview? ‘Sure’, I replied (not an actual quote). We had an hour-long chat via Google Meet, he and his editors did their thang, and the finished product was released on 23 October, for your edification. As ‘A Girl of Ivory, Revisited’ is bonus content, as opposed to a full episode, it’s available to those who support Love + Radio through Patreon, but Nick was kind enough to allow me to provide a Dropbox link to it as well. A better 17min 44sec you’ll not listen to all day! Fact.

Finally, NEW ‘SHOUTING &C.’ POSTS (plural) OUT BEFORE THE END OF 2024. That’s right. Round the time I was helping my Missus get set up on Bluesky, I was lamenting to her for the umpteenth time that instead of faffing about on social media, which is an ephemeral platform, I really should be writing more long-form posts for my blog, which not only is an institution and has been around since 2004, but is a site that I’m paying for. So she shooed me away and told me to do exactly that. To that end, I edited / reworked / took a hammer to three drafts that I’d never completed, one of which I’d started back in 2018, and I shall be publishing them over the next couple of weeks. HOORAY HOORAH HOORUM. Fuck you, social media!! I’m not a part of your system!!
Beyond that, of course, I can’t promise you anything regarding posting schedules, but then again, did I ever? *saucy wink to camera*

Sdtrk: ‘Friends of the heroes’ by The Aislers Set

Hello! Or as my Missus says, Hallo! Yes, despite posting on average once a year, ‘Shouting etc etc’ is still a thing, especially in light of modern social media collapsing into a fascist singularity. Ahem.
As always, a Proper Update™ is due, particularly in regards to our lives, but very very quickly: not only have Ursula, Dyanne, Miss Winter, Elena, Sidore, and I moved to a larger, more aesthetically-pleasing home (still in Michigan) as of December 2023, but we fled Twitter last August and are now on the much-saner social media platform known as Bluesky; I direct you to the lefthand sidebar of this very blog for links to our accounts. Also, Dyanne was understandably ecstatic to receive a brand-new silicone body on (or around) her birthday this past April, manufactured by Normondoll! She’s still very much an airhead, but she’s cheerful, knows her onions when it comes to films, and as sex columnist Dan Savage would say, she’s GGG. Photos of our glorious new digs, known as Deafening silence Towers, are forthcoming, but here’s a few that fulfil the obligation of teasing a fraction of the place, as well as allowing you to see Dyanne Mk.II.

But this post isn’t about all that new stuff, so put that from your minds! The list you see below is more for myself than anyone else — which can arguably be said about half the posts on this blaug — but due to my love of lists, as they help to bring Order to a chaotic and random universe, I’ve made one of my favourite artists, photographers, and graphic designers, with links where applicable. There’s no particular order here, so I’ll add new artists when I discover ones that strike my fancy. It’s my hope that you’ll either be like ‘ohhh so that’s who that is!’ or ‘wow, their work is pretty cool, I’m going to have to look up more of their stuff!’ In any case, rest assured it’ll be interesting. Fact.

Also, you know how it is with the Internet: sometimes links don’t work when sites fall into disrepair, so if you run across that sort of thing happening in the future, give us a shout in the comments section, eh?

+ Peter Saville
+ Gustav Klimt
+ Gerhardt Richter
+ Vaughan Oliver / 23 Envelope
+ Hajime Sorayama
+ HR Giger
+ Zdzisław Beksiński
+ MC Escher
+ Robert McGinnis
+ Helmut Newton
+ Peter Phillips
+ Deborah Turbeville
+ Vilhelm Hammershøi
+ Ed Ruscha
+ Robert Longo
+ Richard Savoie
+ John Atkinson Grimshaw
+ Edward Gorey
+ Alex Colville
+ Julian House / Intro
+ Romek Marber
+ The Designers Republic™
+ Nicola Kuperus
+ Erin Cone
+ Syd Mead
+ Fitz & Van
+ Barbara Kruger
+ Gilbert & George
+ Margaret Keane
+ Stanisław Szukalski
+ Victor Vasarely
+ Bridget Riley
+ Barbara Brown
+ Clemens Gritl
+ Otl Aicher
+ Julian Montague
+ Muriel Cooper
+ Melanie Pullen
+ Do Ho Suh
+ ‘Kynaston Mass’ aka Ian Hodgson of Moon wiring club
+ Dave Gibbons
+ Jack Kirby
+ Jim Steranko
+ Alex Ross
+ Phil Noto
+ Jamie Hewlett
+ Kazuma Kaneko
+ Devin Leonardi
+ Saul & Elaine Bass
+ Paul Rand
+ Mark Robinson / Teen-beat Graphica
+ Max Ernst
+ Dan DeCarlo
+ Pol Bury
+ Kenichi Sonoda
+ Yasushi Nirasawa
+ Betty Brader
+ Akiko Stehrenberger
+ Masahiko Ohno / Works Fatagaga
+ ???

Astute readers looking this list over may note that Andy Warhol is not in fact included here! That’s cos while I dig Warhol to an unnatural degree, I like him more as a pop culture personality and trendsetter than as an artist. The second part of the post’s title comes from something he’d once said, incidentally.
Would you have any favourite artists or graphic designers that you think would be in my wheelhouse? Why not mention them in the comments below, there’s a good person.

N.B: I’d also given some thought to adding a thumbnail image for each entry, but that would be absolutely mental

Sdtrk: ‘I promise’ by Peter Peter

Generally speaking, I can somewhat understand the reasoning behind people wanting to get out of their own heads, whether through recreational drugs or preoccupation, cos it seems more than a few people can’t deal with their own thoughts. It should be painfully obvious, however, that personally, I absolutely love being in my own head, as I find it more interesting than what goes on in the external world. Maybe ‘interesting’ isn’t the best-fitting word, but generally speaking, it’s much more welcoming in here.

Photo unrelated. Well, perhaps a wee bit related

Sdtrk: ‘Psychosomatica’ by Bedhead

It is my belief that Golden Globe award-winning Canadian actor Ryan Thomas Gosling is very keen on Synthetiks.

THE EVIDENCE:
+ In 2007, Ryan Gosling came to be noticed in a larger sphere of pop culture when he portrayed Lars Lindstrom in the 2007 film ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘, which of course I’ve previously mentioned on ‘Shouting &c.’

As a sensitive man who was deeply in love with Bianca, his RealDoll companion, seeing her as being much more than a ‘sex toy’, he expertly took on the role of a Doll husband

+ In 2017, he portrayed KD6-3.7, a Nexus-9 series Replicant, in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Blade runner 2049‘. If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the world of Blade runner, a Replicant is a Synthetik human. As they’re bioengineered artificial beings, they’re not traditional robots with mechanical endoskeletons and rubber skin, but more like the humanoid equivalent of a veggie burger.

Any way you intepret the term Replicant, however, K was a Synthetik human

+ In 2023, Ryan Gosling will be embodying Ken in the upcoming hallucinatory-looking live-action Barbie feature film, directed by Greta Gerwig.

You can’t get much more straightforward than that; he will literally be playing a doll.

Ladies, gentlemen, and others: An iDollator, an Android, and a doll (lower-case, but still). The evidence is there, and it speaks for itself.
Ryan Gosling, if you’re somehow reading this, I’d just like you to know that there’s absolutely no shame in being a robosexual or an iDollator, so there’s no need to hide it! They’re both amazing and unique global communities where you can meet loads of interesting people, most of them made in a studio, a factory, or a robotics department, and your life will improve exponentially for it! Fact.
Just so you know, I’d seen you in ‘Drive’ and ‘Only God forgives’, and those films were incredible as well… keep up the good work!

As an aside, I still occasionally keep in contact with Roc Morin, freewheeling freelance writer who wrote about me, my Missus and our mistress for VICE back in 2014. He was at some get-together in Hollywood in 2017, and, unbeknownst to me, had a chance to chat with Ryan Gosling; having done so, he sent me a text:

Either Roc never provided me with Ryan Gosling’s answer, or Ryan Gosling never provided Roc with an answer. Very suspicious, indeed

Sdtrk: ‘Incubation’ by Joy division

This is the sort of nonsense you get up to when you turn fifty:

Behold: baby’s first tattoo

As of the 14th of this month, I have spent fifty years on this blighted earth, this wretched demesne, this cursèd vale. It’s not really an unending torrent of horrors, though; there’s Synthetiks, and cats, and there are a few places with really good wifi. About three or so years ago, knowing that my half-century mark was rapidly approaching, I’d decided that I was going to get my first tattoo. You’d think someone such as myself with a flair for ostentatious decoration that I’d have more on my person, but I have an understandable aversion to physical pain. Well, pain of any kind, really. But I said to myself that getting a tattoo was something I not only wanted, but needed, to do, so I’d do my best to endure the process.

Now I do enjoy good minimalist design; some of my visual favourites would be the logos and trademarks created by various graphic designers and artists, particularly throught the late Fifties up to the mid-Eighties. Top tier designers in my book would be Saul Bass,

Paul Rand,

with my hands-down graphic design god being Peter Saville. Peter, in case you’re unfamiliar with his work, was responsible for the visual aesthetic of Factory records, his heyday arguably being during the late Seventies to the early Nineties.

I’d been listening to New wave and alternative bands, mostly from the UK, during the Eighties, but I hadn’t heard New order until maybe 1986, when my best friend Sean dubbed a copy of their 1983 cassette release of Power, corruption & lies for me, and not only was I enthralled by the music, but the minimal artwork really gripped me. Granted, the US Qwest records version ruined it by putting the name of both the group and the album on the front, but the concept of a band who simply had art and design studies for their covers and were averse to using photos of themselves on any of their releases — up until 1985’s Low-life, of course — and were making synthesised electronic dance music that seemed generally divorced from humanity struck several chords in me. They were struck quite strongly, as they’re still resonating nearly 40 years later. That’s almost as old as I am!

Looking into Peter Saville back then, I discovered he was the art director and graphic designer for Factory records, a record label located in Manchester, the North of England, and New order were arguably the biggest group on the label in the Eighties (I regrettably have yet to hear more than a couple of songs by the Durutti Column; I’ll get that sorted one day). Over time, I learned that New order were formed in the aftermath of the dissolution of a previous band, Joy division, none of their material I’d heard until their 1988 compilation, Substance. Coincidentally enough, the lass I had a thing for back in highschool bought me a cassette copy for my 16th birthday! And that, dear reader, is when I fell in love… in love with Joy division.

Without getting into tremendous detail, I’m a bit of a Joy division fan, so — bringing us back to the present — it only seemed natural to me to get a tattoo related to them. Joy division is one of those groups where everything they’d released in their lifetime, which would be two studio albums, two Peel sessions, and the first of many compilations, are damn near flawless, and since they’re no longer recording (see link above), there’s never a chance of them making any releases that edge towards the Not Good end of the spectrum. Y’know, like Laibach, who I still have a great fondness for, but anything they made after 1994 simply isn’t as good as their older stuff. Or, y’know, like New order post-Technique, for that matter.

In April, I’d asked MontiLee where she had her pieces done, and she recommended Ed DeLoney of Royal oak tattoo, so I’d made a consultation with him one day after work in early October, bringing a couple of examples of the design I wanted on my phone, to be done in blackwork, two inches in diameter. It’d be on the inside of my left forearm, which, due to the way I dress, is one of the few places where you can actually see my uncovered flesh. Ed said that wouldn’t be an issue, and we arranged an appointment for November. Now, ideally, I’d wanted to get my tattoo on the actual day of my birthday, but this year, it fell on a Monday, and that would’ve been dire. Who celebrates a birthday on a Monday?? Instead of the 14th, I’d enquired about the 18th, which he pencilled me in for.
With the exception of my oft-mentioned friend Amber Hawk Swanson, I didn’t really tell anyone that I was slated to get all inked up… I’d mentioned it a couple of times over the past year or two in reference to my fiftieth birthday, but I didn’t go on about it recently. Generally speaking, I’m the sort of bloke who doesn’t like to reveal major plans unless I’m 98% sure they’ll come to pass; that way if they don’t come to pass, I don’t look like some kind of idiot for talking about this or that that I want to do, and it ends up not occurring.

On 18 November (a Friday), I’d taken the day off. Half due to the tattooing sesh, and half due to that being the first day of this year’s Love and Sex with Robots conference. Which was utterly fantastic, by the way; each year, they’ve been getting exponentially better. But I’d gotten round to Royal oak tattoo for my appointment at 4pm in due course. Apart from Ed, I was the only one there. Ed’s an affable bloke in his eighties whose thick and lengthy white beard, the bottom third of which was braided into a thin plait, makes him resemble an alt-rock Father Christmas. The studio featured, among other things, various actual swords on the walls, a shelf full of Star wars ephemera, a dentist chair from the Fifties, and a fish tank with no visible fish. I told him I was a bit nervous, as I was a tattoo virgin, so he put my mind at ease by discussing various subjects. We ended up talking at length about film photography: whereas I learned ages ago how to develop black and white film during a photography course at Wayne state university, he was taking photos of wildlife in northern Michigan. Loves Canon cameras, isn’t too keen on Hasselblad. Admittedly, with a Hasselblad, you’re paying for the name.

What did I think of the physical sensation of having a tattoo, you ask? I wouldn’t say it was painful, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant. ‘Getting repeatedly jabbed by a needle’ doesn’t really convey the feeling… I’d say it was more akin to someone Dremeling me. Rather like a sandpaper sensation. Sandpaper Sensation — that’s not a bad band name! Kinda Sixtiesy.
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Ed advised me, noticing that I was in some discomfort. ‘Not breathing causes your nervous system to tighten up’. To be honest, I think that’s what he’d said, as I was too focussed on nice thoughts to be able to concentrate on putting the buzzing from my mind. I’ve had worse experiences, like when my painkillers wore off after a root canal back in 2007, but let’s just say that one of the reasons I went with a small design was less flesh scraping.
Overall, though, Ed did a professional and fast job of it — I was out of there after 90min — and was amusing and helped put me at ease through the process. I’d highly recommend him, but if you want him to work on you, you’ll have to be quick, as he’s retiring at the end of this year!

Speaking of design, Davecat, you ask, exasperated by this point in the narrative, what the hell does your tattoo mean?? It’s related to Joy division, yes, but unlike most people who have Joy division tattoos, I wanted something that wasn’t the famous CP1919 pulsar diagram, aka the design from the cover of Unknown pleasures. If you type ‘joy division tattoo’ into Google, you’ll see what I mean. Plus, that would be an AWFUL lot of linework.
Factory records had a publishing arm called Fractured Music that only released music from the latter half of Joy division’s catalogue, as well as New order’s first single, and that was their logo. It also references the f-holes you find in the bodies of violins, cellos, and guitars, and in musical terminology, 𝆑 means ‘forte’, or ‘play loud’. Still was a compilation of various otherwise-unreleased songs by the band, posthumously released after lead vocalist Ian Curtis took his own life, and the Fractured Music logo is one of the only two elements on the cover.
It’s common knowledge that I tend towards the obscure; I love instances where 98% of people seeing or hearing a reference I make are like ‘lolwut’, but the other 2% are like ‘AW JEAH I SEE WHAT U DID THAR’, those 2% are my people.

So there you have it! I love my tattoo, as it’s pretty fucking amazing.

One thing Ed mentioned is that it’d be odds on that, like many of his customers, I’d be back to have another piece done. He told me that he’d had a lass in a while ago who was convinced that she only wanted one, and that’d be the end of it. Shortly after, he said, she returned for four more tattoos in as many days; she’d be there waiting for the crew to open the studio.
*admires tattoo again*
I’ll give it some thought, Ed